Selfishness is behind every kind of inhumanity. It’s this country’s worst failing. USA stands for the United Selves of America.
Screens of every kind kill meaning for those on them and for those watching them. People must talk to people; lives must touch lives. The Revelation will not be televised.
Can’t walk with me and carry a gun.
That homeless guy you gave a quarter to while you were gabbing on your cell phone? He’ll be in paradise long before you.
Last time I said something perhaps I shouldn’t have, something that’s been taken the wrong way: “The poor are always with you.” At that moment, back then, I wanted my friends’ attention.
I meant I was going to die soon, but they would have the rest of their lives to care for the poor.
But the rich have twisted my words to mean something quite different: that there’s nothing you can do about the poor. That the poor are part of life, like disease or accidents or hurricanes or getting old. Poverty is natural. You’ll never get rid of it, so forget about trying. Don’t worry that the poor have so much less than you do. Go eat your big meal, go drive your big car, go sleep in your big house. Let the poor look in the windows. Jesus says it’s OK. Well, Jesus doesn’t say it’s OK. OK?
P&L. It can stand for peace and love or profit and loss. But not both. Take your pick.
Whoever is near me will burn; whoever is far from me will freeze. There’s nowhere you’ll be comfortable.
Jay would preach some of these by himself. Then he’d encourage people to call out the first two words—“Blessed are . . .”—and he would say the rest. When people got into it, they came up with both halves by themselves. Jay said that was the whole point: When people truly understood his message, got the right attitude, these ideas came naturally. That’s why Kevin called them the Be-attitudes. Here are some he collected.
Blessed are the homeless, for they shall find their way home.
Blessed are the imperfect, for they know no one is perfect.
Blessed are the lovers, for they become one.
Blessed are the cowards, for they have killed no one.
Blessed are the homely, for without them there’s no beauty.
Blessed are the generous, for they know their riches belong to others.
Blessed are the doubters, for doubt is the path to truth.
Blessed are the worms, for they turn death into life.
Blessed are the shadows, for they define the light.
Blessed are the dead, for they know the answer.
Every human being on earth is descended from the first man and the first woman. How do we know? The Bible tells us so. And so does human DNA. Human DNA tells us Adam and Eve lived and met in the Great Rift Valley of the Horn of Africa; scientists estimate between fifty and seventy thousand years ago. Actually it was 61,522 years ago.
Our original African parents didn’t call themselves Adam and Eve. What they called each other was mostly clicks and grunts, so we’ll call them Click and Grunt. From the love between Click and Grunt flowed all the tribes and races and nations and peoples and faiths and classes and colors and sizes and sexes of man- and womankind. Just as the Bible says, we are all one family that has endured from generation unto generation. Only the Bible didn’t get the number of generations right; since our first parents had their first child, there’ve been around twenty-five hundred generations. But the Bible has the basic story exactly right. Scientific wisdom doesn’t contradict my parents’ wisdom; it just helps to bring its genius and generosity to light.
The final saying is also a doing. It concerns Taborsky, the jail where Jay was incarcerated. Taborsky was only a medium-security facility, but the conditions were murderous. Everyone in there had a blade.
It is said that on Jay’s first day inside, in the workroom, one inmate tried to kill another in front of him. It is said he stopped the fight and healed the victim of a serious wound. It is said he then preached against payback.
“So this guy kills that one. Some day someone will kill him. Payback always comes around to bite you in the ass. The way out? Forgiveness. Don’t laugh. Guys think forgiveness is weakness. Uh-uh. Forgiveness is strength; payback is weakness. Everyone from the warden to the guards outside that door want us to believe in payback. That’s why we’re in here. We’re being paid back by society, so we pay back someone else. It goes around and around, everyone paying back everyone else, hating and dying. We live in a world of payback. We need to live in a world of forgiveness. It’s the difference between death and life.”
Someone shouts out he’s done bad shit. Is Jay saying he ain’t evil? Jay says no, but he can be forgiven. He tells them a parable.
“There’s this high school cannot win at basketball. The coach is great, but he never has the players. Then one year in the intake there are two kids who are the best point guard and the best shooting guard he’s ever seen. The shooting guard is fifteen, six-four. He has sweet hands and plays great D. The point guard is shorter, but his moves are like lightning and he can shoot three-pointers all night.
“That high school starts beating every other school in the league. The two boys are the whole reason. Then the point guard falls in with some bad kids. Starts messing with drugs. Game goes downhill. His team starts to lose. The shooting guard’s a good kid, but he can’t do it all by himself.
“Now, which one of those two boys does the coach lie awake worrying himself sick about? Which kid does he care about more? Which kid does he go looking for on the street and do everything in his power to save?”
It’s real quiet in the workroom. The same guy says, “The point guard?”
“Straight. And that point guard is you, brother. That’s how things are between you and your coach.”
It is said Jay later healed many men of ailments. It is said he made visits at night to other inmates: the lonely, the despairing, the suicidal. It is said he just appeared in their cells; steel bars could not contain him.
It is said that after Jay had been inside for a month, prisoners began to disappear. There were never any signs of escape and, once away, the escapees were never caught. This was bad. No one had ever escaped from Taborsky.
Warden Tulliver, a righteous Christian of the New England mold, blamed his officers. His officers blamed Jay. They put Jay in the Hole, but the disappearances continued. Mutiny was in the air.
It is said Warden Tulliver had inmate 2427 K6Z brought before him. It is said he asked Jay if he was helping these men escape. Jay said they’d been able to escape because they were forgiven. Tulliver replied, “The Lord forgives. The State of Connecticut does not.” And Jay said, “Then I forgive them. I release them in my Mother’s name.”
It is said Jay’s fearlessness worried the warden. It is said the warden feared him for another reason; the judge who’d sent Jay up had just been diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer. It is said that is why, some time before his scheduled release, prisoner 2427 K6Z walked.